Choosing Our Future

This work comprises a collection of essays by geographers, economists and non-professionals, in which they describe their visions for a sustainable future and what they hope the world will be like for their grandchildren. Each vision reflects a particular life circumstance and cultural conditions.

A cautionary but optimistic book about the world’s changing climate and the fate of humanity, from Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac—who led negotiations for the United Nations during the historic Paris Agreement of 2015. The authors outline two possible scenarios for our planet. In one, they describe what life on Earth will be like by 2050 if we fail to meet the Paris Agreement’s climate targets. In the other, they lay out what it will be like to live in a regenerative world that has net-zero emissions. They argue for confronting the climate crisis head-on, with determination and optimism. The Future We Choose presents our options and tells us what governments, corporations, and each of us can, and must, do to fend off disaster.

Choosing Our Future is an introduction to the foundational choices we must all make as we seek to know ourselves. It probes the values that establish our character, defining our choices, our behaviors, and our future. If you feel like your life is not turning out as expected, or the journey is more difficult than you thought it would be; if you are looking for something to help you make a change, but you are not quite sure what that is; if you are a young person who would like to take charge of the choices that can set your direction, Choosing Our Future is for you.

Forget worries about cloning people. In the future, technological advances will bring far more meaningful and controversial changes to our offspring. As scientists rapidly improve their ability to identify, screen and manipulate genes, people will want to protect their future children from diseases, help them live longer and even influence their looks and their abilities. Stock, an expert on the implications of recent advances in reproductive biology, clearly shows that neither governments, nor religious groups will be able to stop the coming trend of choosing an embryo's genes, and that there is little point in even trying.

A scenario for the next half-century (2020 - 2070) that explores climate disruption, a world systems crisis, a great fall for humanity, a time of great sorrow, awakening to our predicament as a human community, and together confronting the choice of rising to a higher level of maturity and potential as a species. While moving toward a pathway of great transition, Choosing Earth also acknowledges two other futures that are powerfully present in the world: 1) A pathway of breakdown, chaos and collapse; and 2) a pathway of authoritarian control enhanced with AI that wrenches the world back from the brink of catastrophe with the strict controls. This wide-ranging book looks wide, deep, and long: Looks wide by integrating a wide range and diversity of knowledge sources. Looks deep by including consciousness, awakening experiences, compassion and other invisible factors for understanding. Looks long by raising our gaze to the next half-century and beyond to get our bearings for the changing pathway ahead.

"This book presents the first conclusive evidence that broadband adoption in the population is linked to economic growth and prosperity, in counties and metros, whether urban, suburban or rural. Public policy, including the National Broadband Plan (FCC 2010), has been premised on the expectation that broadband use fosters economic opportunity for communities. The quote from Commissioner Rosenworcel at the beginning of this chapter demonstrates the significance of broadband for public policy, beyond a utility to be regulated. Until now, however, evidence for assumptions about the benefits of broadband adoption has been lacking because of a scarcity of reliable data over time. Measuring broadband subscriptions rather than deployment is critical because of what has been called the "subscription gap" (Tomer and Shivaram 2017) - the difference between broadband availability and the reality of those who can afford it and have the ability to use it. In this chapter we review the findings throughout the book, discuss place-based barriers in communities, and implications for public policy"-- Provided by publisher.

Provides an overview of green jobs, presents profiles of ninety different occupations, offers case studies and interviews, and includes career planning information and job search resources.

A fascinating insight into how professionals and businesses can develop their foresight and strategy to ensure that they are prepared for an unpredictable future. Businesses, organizations and society-at-large are all subject to unforeseeable events and incidents that often have a dramatic impact upon prosperity and profit. Due to their unpredictable nature, business leaders and executive teams are unable to prepare for these specific events. But, through innovation, strategizing and an open-minded approach, they can restructure their organization and practices in order to mitigate (or even take advantage of) the impact of such events. In Facing Our Futures, Nikolas Badminton draws upon his decades of experience as a consultant and futurist to provide readers with the skillset and outlook they need to prepare their organization, team and themselves for whatever obstacles the future may hold. CEOs, executive teams, government leaders and policy makers need to gain a broader perspective and a firmer grasp on how their relevant industry, society or community is evolving and changing. Once they have acquired this foresight, they need to then discover how to fully harness it – by strengthening their foundations, forecasting and establishing a resilient and adaptable strategy. Facing Our Futures acts as a primer on the value of seeing how bad things can get and the power in imagining these futures. It also provides a proven strategic planning and foresight methodology - the Positive Dystopia Canvas (PDC) - that allows leaders to supercharge their teams to build evocative visions of futures that strengthen planning today.

For most of the earths existence it has hosted organic life. Single cell life evolved into multicellular plants and animals. Some animals started to use simple toolsfrom otters cracking open shellfish with rocks to chimpanzees dipping into termite mounds with sticksbut another animal went farther. It used tools to create even better tools. With spears it hunted. With sewn animal hides it survived the cold. With plows it created surplus. With tablet and scribes it recorded information. These tools led to the printing press, microscope, steam engine, telephone, airplane, and computer. We call these things technology, and for a million years they have been transforming our environmentwith ever increasing speed and power, costs and benefits. Technology creates new fields of study, destroys old lines of work, and offers new ways to cure illness. Our political decisions and consumption choices rest atop technology.So how do we choose? How do we evaluate technology and technological issues to choose what is good for us, our community, and our civilization? Through simple questions, Technology Challenged reveals patterns underlying all technology, helping us to understand our creations and choose our future.Praise for Technology Challenged:Fish don't notice water and most of society doesn't think about technology. But technology grows ever more powerful, and blindly accepting or rejecting it grows ever more dangerous. The critical thinking process described by Aznar opens a door to understanding through which every citizen in our country should walk.Karl PisterChancellor EmeritusUniversity of California at Santa Cruz Technology infuses everything we do. Like a gathering storm, it has become the fastest moving, most powerful new element of our natural world. Like any force of nature, it is something we should study well, to chart a course to a better future, a course that takes care of our loved ones along the way. Only a lifelong learner can be a good captain in our technological world, and this scintillating, optimistic book will help you get your sea legs. Read Technology Challenged, consider its advice, and rejoice. This is a wondrous time to be alive.John SmartPresidentInstitute for the Study of Accelerating Change Technology Challenged is a passionate and personal voyage of discovery into today's complicated world of technology. Here educators and parents can find a simple road map to understanding technology and find a new approach to get across technologys culture and wisdom to children of all ages.Dom LindarsSenior DirectorOracle Corporation Having tracked technology on surprising pathways to its secret dumping grounds in the slums of China and India, I have witnessed both sides of the technology coin the glory as well as the horror. Our very survival as a species requires that we fully appreciate both possibilities. Anyone concerned about the life and death relationship between our planet's future and technology, should read Technology Challenged.Jim PuckettCoordinatorBasel Action Network Aznar tackles the important issue of how we, as a society, evaluate our technology. With the power to feed the world or to destroy it, technology is worth thinking about.Cathy BarlowDean, Watson School of EducationUniversity of North Carolina at Wilmington